.us
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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| Introduced | 1985 |
|---|---|
| TLD type | Country code top-level domain |
| Status | Active |
| Registry | Neustar |
| Sponsoring organization | United States Department of Commerce |
| Intended use | Entities connected with United States of America |
| Actual use | American business use of its own country code top level domain (ccTLD) is fast growing in popularity |
| Registration restrictions | U.S. nexus requirement can be enforced by challenge, but seldom is |
| Structure | Originally registrations were within complex, 3rd or 4th level hierarchy, but currently direct second-level registrations are allowed; kids.us permits 3rd-level registrations for child-friendly sites |
| Documents | RFC 1480; USDoC agreements with Neustar |
| Dispute policies | usTLD Dispute Resolution Policy (usDRP) |
| Web site | nic.us |
.US is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for the United States of America, established in 1985. Registrants of .us domains must be United States citizens, residents, or organizations, or a foreign entity with a presence in the United States. Most registrants in the country have registered for .com, .net, .org and other gTLDs, rather than .us, which has traditionally primarily been used by many state and local governments (although any entity had the option of registering a .us domain). In particular, the domains .gov and .mil have been reserved for US usage, and .edu is mostly limited to US entities (although a small number of non-United States educational institutions have managed to register there).
The original administrator of .us was Jon Postel of the Information Sciences Institute at the University of Southern California. He administrated .us under a sub-contract USC/ISI had from SRI International (who held the .us and the Generic top-level domains contract with the United States Department of Defense) and later Network Solutions (who held the .us and the Generic top-level domains contract with the National Science Foundation). Registrants could only register third-level domains or higher in a geographic and organizational hierarchy. The vast majority of the geographic sub-domains in .us were delegated to various private entities and .us registrants would register with the delegated administrator for the level they wished to register in, not directly with the .us administrator. However, from April 2002, second-level domains became available for registration. The .us domain is currently administered by NeuStar Inc. under a United States Department of Commerce contract.
Since the official release of .us as a second-level domain, it has been adopted and developed by a number of private corporations and local citizenry. The .us country code is no longer in the exclusive realm of only governmental agencies.
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[edit] State administered second-level domains
These are derived from postal abbreviations for the states.
- .ak.us: Alaska
- .al.us: Alabama
- .ar.us: Arkansas
- .az.us: Arizona
- .ca.us: California
- .co.us: Colorado
- .ct.us: Connecticut
- .dc.us: District of Columbia
- .de.us: Delaware
- .fl.us: Florida
- .ga.us: Georgia
- .hi.us: Hawaii
- .ia.us: Iowa
- .id.us: Idaho
- .il.us: Illinois
- .in.us: Indiana
- .ks.us: Kansas
- .ky.us: Kentucky
- .la.us: Louisiana
- .ma.us: Massachusetts
- .md.us: Maryland
- .me.us: Maine
- .mi.us: Michigan
- .mn.us: Minnesota
- .mo.us: Missouri
- .ms.us: Mississippi
- .mt.us: Montana
- .nc.us: North Carolina
- .nd.us: North Dakota
- .ne.us: Nebraska
- .nh.us: New Hampshire
- .nj.us: New Jersey
- .nm.us: New Mexico
- .nv.us: Nevada
- .ny.us: New York
- .oh.us: Ohio
- .ok.us: Oklahoma
- .or.us: Oregon
- .pa.us: Pennsylvania
- .ri.us: Rhode Island
- .sc.us: South Carolina
- .sd.us: South Dakota
- .tn.us: Tennessee
- .tx.us: Texas
- .ut.us: Utah
- .va.us: Virginia
- .vt.us: Vermont
- .wa.us: Washington
- .wi.us: Wisconsin
- .wv.us: West Virginia
- .wy.us: Wyoming
Note:American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands have top level domains.
[edit] Other administered second-level domains
- .dni.us: distributed national institutes
- .fed.us: federal government agencies
- .isa.us: interstate agency (only used for the Interstate Mining Compact Commission, www.imcc.isa.us)
- .kids.us: content suitable for children under 13
- .nsn.us: Native sovereign nations (federally recognized Native American tribes)
Since direct registration of second-level names by individuals and companies has been available since 2002, there are some second-level names which permit unofficial third-level registrations. These have included blog.us for use by bloggers, and protozoans.us for sites suitable for viewing by bacteria (a parody of the kids.us domain for child-suitable sites). These do not appear to be active at the present time.
[edit] Locality-based namespaces
- <locality>.<state>.us: cities, counties, parishes, and townships
- ci.<locality>.<state>.us: city government agencies (subdomain under locality)
- town.<locality>.<state>.us: town government agencies (subdomain under locality)
- co.<locality>.<state>.us: county government agencies (subdomain under locality)
- <school-name>.k12.<state>.us: public school districts
- <school-name>.pvt.k12.<state>.us: private schools
- <school-name>.cc.<state>.us: community colleges
- <school-name>.tec.<state>.us: technical and vocational schools
- <library-name>.lib.<state>.us: state, regional, city, and county libraries
- <organization-name>.state.<state>.us: state government agencies
- <organization-name>.gen.<state>.us: general independent entities (groups not fitting into the above categories)
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- .us Domain Registry
- .us Expiring Lists and Information
- IANA .us whois information
- Management of .us Domain Name (U.S. Department of Commerce)
- usTLD Nexus Requirements - Requirements for registrants of .us domains, Portable Document Format
- Kids.us Content Policies
- RFC 1480: The US Domain (June 1993)
